While feedback is frequently emphasized as a crucial principle of presentation courses in higher education, previous studies revealed that teachers outperform peers in terms of impact on students’ development of oral presentation competence. Further, presentation research showed that the lack of quality of peer feedback can be considered as an essential argumentation for the identified differences in effect. Follow-up field experiments demonstrated that Virtual Reality (VR) can be considered as a valuable alternative feedback source for developing public speaking skills, since this technology is able to simulate real-life presentation situations as well as to deliver feedback from the VR system to the individual learner. Recent technological developments allowed to convert quantitative information from VR systems into qualitative feedback messages that directly relate to the standards for high-quality feedback. If students are able to individually interpret the feedback messages without the intervention of a human feedback source, it could enrich the quality of feedback in peer and self-learning and further increase students’ oral presentation competence development. This chapter provides a synthesis of the literature in presentation research with the aim to construct a research agenda on computer-mediated feedback in VR for peer learning in this field. Further, two recent VR experiments in presentation research are discussed with the aim to effectively construct feedback messages in VR for improving peer learning.
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From the article: "AbstractFeedback plays a central role in learning. Crucial to this is the nature and timing ofthe feedback. This experimental study explores the efficacy of immediate computer-mediated feedback within a virtual reality environment designed to facilitate thedevelopment of pre-university students' presentation skills. Two conditions wereestablished to assess the efficacy: immediate computer-mediated feedback; a controlcondition of delayed expert-mediated feedback. Results showed improvement butno statistically relevant difference in performance gains between the two conditions,suggesting both can facilitate learning. Furthermore, students perceived the environ-ment to be an effective and motivating platform in which to practise presentationskills. For educators seeking viable alternatives to face-to-face presentation practiceand feedback, the finding that immediate computer-mediated feedback is potentiallyas effective in aiding presentation performance is crucial for two reasons: first, itexpands practice opportunities for students; second, it could result in less pressureon resources, including time and staffing."
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From the article: "Whilst the importance of online peer feedback and writing argumentative essays for students in higher education is unquestionable, there is a need for further research into whether and the extent to which female and male students differ with regard to their argumentative feedback, essay writing, and content learning in online settings. The current study used a pre-test, post-test design to explore the extent to which female and male students differ regarding their argumentative feedback quality, essay writing and content learning in an online environment. Participants were 201 BSc biotechnology students who wrote an argumentative essay, engaged in argumentative peer feedback with learning partners in the form of triads and finally revised their original argumentative essay. The findings revealed differences between females and males in terms of the quality of their argumentative feedback. Female students provided higher-quality argumentative feedback than male students. Although all students improved their argumentative essay quality and also knowledge content from pre-test to post-test, these improvements were not significantly different between females and males. Explanations for these findings and recommendations are provided"
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